


It's a Mad World

by thegirlgrey



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Crossover, Explicit Language, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 17:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11109009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlgrey/pseuds/thegirlgrey
Summary: What's in Kentucky that Mad Sweeney can't wait to get to? An old favor and even older acquaintances.





	It's a Mad World

**Author's Note:**

> This short takes place before episode 6, and it is a bit of a crossover between the show, the book, and my mind.

Jack’s Crocodile Bar might as well be his new home for all that he’s been here this past month. He sits at a stool at the bar. It’s his second chair as his first had a faulty leg that split the second he perched his perky arse on it. 

The bartender took pity on him, none too worried about a lawsuit in a trash heap of bar like this, and gave him a free round of Southern Comfort and Coke. He hadn’t even tried to flirt with her, not with his current streak of shite luck. She was a pretty lass. She had blue grey eyes with an easy smile that went a little crooked on the right and a thick body with the nicest pair of tits he’s seen since Wednesday roped him into his little favor fight. Some favor. It has forced Sweeney to call in a few favors of his own. This favor is the last he has and is nearly as old as he is.

The bartender comes back over to him with that crooked smile. He finds himself smiling back though he doesn’t feel happy at all.

“Can I get you another drink?”

“Aye, love. I’m also waiting on a call from an associate of mine. They’ll be asking for Sweeney.”

Her smile falls just a little as she mixes his drink.

“I don’t know if my boss would like that.”

He takes his drink and hands her the cost of it and a decent tip.

“The owner and I are old friends. Dion wouldn’t mind me using his phone for a bit.”

She looks like she’s about to say something but shakes her head instead. She moves around the bar only to return with a black cordless phone. She places it next to his drink.

“If Jack catches you with it, you’re on your own.”

He gives her a wide grin and a wink.

“Thank you, love.”

He sips at his drink as she wanders away to someone down the bar. She’s put a little more coke than whiskey in his drink. He thanks his piss poor luck for that too. He tries to do the math in his head while he waits. The voicemail message said his old acquaintance would return her calls in two day's time.

And it’s been a very, very long two days for Sweeney. He’d almost been shot, nearly killed in a car crash, and had to dig up a fucking grave just to find it empty. So he limped back to the last place he’d seen that dark eyed bastard Shadow Moon and waited for his call to be returned.

(When the paramedic had asked if he wanted to call someone after the crash, only one name stuck out in Sweeney’s head. He had dialed the number by rote memory and left a message when the ringing finally stopped. He knew it was a long shot, that she (that _they_ ) kept to themselves now, but anything was worth a shot at this point.)

He had helped her out so long ago, and he knew she was still in the states. Their dog got loose a few years back and caused all kinds of ruckus in the sleepy streets of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. He still doesn’t get how the beast made it all the way there without getting seen sooner, but he doesn’t care much for keeping up with the Greeks except for the one that owns this bar and a thousand others like it all over the world. Dionysus likes it when people fight in his bars; it gives the old bones a bit of a spruce up.

When the phone rings, Sweeney has to fight himself to not dive after it.

“Jack’s,” when the bartender raises her brow at him he rolls his eyes playfully and corrects himself, “Crocodile Bar.”

A warm voice answers.

“Working at a bar instead of brawling at it? Mad Sweeney, have you finally changed your ways?”

He sags against the bar in relief.

“For you? Never, love.”

A hum comes across the phone.

“See, even that didn’t sound like you. The message you left me didn’t sound like you. For one, you didn’t try to hit on me-”

Sweeney cuts her off. Pride is a hard thing to let go off even when you need help.

“If you miss my flirtations that much, your husband has not been treating you right. I would treat you like the queen you are. I’d worship you all night lo-”

Now, she cuts him off. She can be damn direct when she wants to, and her voice can be colder than even her husband’s.

“Sweeney.”

“I cannot cross into the other world. I can barely conjure. I, I have been abjured.”

This time her voice is soft, is shocked.

“ _Buile.”_

The name makes his stomach roll, but it soothes his heavy heart. She is his last hope. Her husband is the only one that may be able to help at all being God of the Underworld. It was Sweeney’s luck that has sent more than many a man their way over the centuries. It was Sweeney's luck that got her away from her controlling mother, and it was his luck that got her husband his soulmate no matter what those bastardized myths say.

“I can feel the light of the fair folk draining from me, love. I need to return what was not rightfully mine.”

He can feel it, even now. Hunger is starting to creep in. Exhaustion too. He’d never needed to eat or sleep before and only did it if he wished to. Those were mortal needs, and he wasn’t exactly mortal. 

“How did it happen?”

He reaches out for the edge of this plane where reality folds in on the next, reaches past it, reaches into the other world, and tries to grasp a coin. It feels like he’s pushing his entire arm through thick molasses. A single gold coin rests in his palm as soon as you can blink. It gets harder to reach that place, the hoard, every time. The gold coin feels like lead in his hand.

“I bargained a coin. I lost the bargain, and I lost the coin. Except the coin was the Queen’s gold and was never meant to be given.”

He drags a hand down his face and feels nearly all of his three thousand odd years old.

“Now the coin that was lost was given to another, but that other is a dead cunt that won’t give it back.”

“And you cannot take it back.”

He nods and cradles the receiver against his left shoulder to free up his right hand to pick up his drink. He needs a good swig after admitting his downright idiotic blunder.

“Aye, I can’t take it back. There are rules that even I won’t break. I answer to the Court even now.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. If Sweeney listens hard enough, he swears he can hear the long echo of death stretch across the silence.

“You know we can’t do anything to the living. It isn’t our realm.”

This time Sweeney laughs.

“I know, love. But this bitch isn’t living. She’s been resurrected. Brought back. She’s walking around in rotting flesh.”

It sounds as if the woman that calls herself Cora now (though she was Cora back then, before he meddled) is rummaging around on a desk or on a bookshelf. He can hear papers rustling. He can almost hear the excitement in her voice. The lass always did enjoy wreaking a bit of havoc here and there.

“That’s... different. Not a zombie? Or a wight?”

“Nah, at least it ain’t one like I’ve ever seen.”

And it’s true. The dead wife ain’t no reanimated corpse. There is no magic around her that he can sense. There ain’t no spell on her that he can see. It’s damn fucking confusing is what it is.

“I won’t make any promises, but bring her to Kentucky. We’ll see what we can do.”

He smiles down the line and tries to squash the feeling of hope that bursts to life in his chest.

“Thank you, Persephone.”

Her laugh still sounds like foxgloves rustling on the gentle meadow breeze.

“It has been such a long time since anyone other than Hades has used that name.”

He wants to laugh, but feels like he’ll jinx everything if he does.

“How’s the old git doing anyway? Don’t see the world as having much use for an Underworld or God of it now a days.”

Her voice still goes soft and fond when she speaks of him, the god that stole her heart long before she asked for Sweeney’s help (and a bit of his luck) to steal away with her beloved.

“He goes by Hayden now. We run an accounting firm together when I’m not running the business with my mom half of the year.”

Sweeney laughs now at the picture that pops into his head of Hades, Lord of the Dead, stuck behind a desk in a suit and tie.

“I hope I won’t be seeing Mrs. 1-800-Flowers during my little visit. She ain’t my biggest fan you know.”

Cora laughs again.

“Lucky for you, she left a few weeks ago for California for the winter.”

He tries to not let his voice sound bitter. It just comes out flat instead.

“I don’t have luck on my side anymore.”

“You will again, Buile. I’ll see you soon.”

He sighs down the phone.

“Aye, love. Soon.”

He puts the phone back into its cradle, fishes a twenty out of his pocket, and leaves it on the bar before he leaves Jack’s altogether. He’s got a dead wife to find and whisk off to Kentucky whether she likes it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> The beast mentioned is actually in reference to Cerberus the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld.
> 
> The acquaintances are actually Persephone (sometimes referred to as Cora or Kore in the texts) and Hades from Greek mythology.
> 
> Dionysus is the God of Wine... and madness, theatre, and fertility. He'd be right at home owning a bar or several.
> 
> The 1-800_Flowers reference was to Persephone's mother Demeter, the Goddess of Harvest.


End file.
